Net Neutrality ‘Day of Action’ Fizzles into Big Yawn

The “Day of Action” for Net Neutrality, organized by the world’s biggest corporations for their own economic benefit, appears to be fizzling into a big yawn.

In the run-up to the July 12 online “Battle for the Net” to save Net Neutrality regulations from repeal by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Republican majority, Breitbart News reported the potential for the protest to morph into a 24-hour rage by viral organizations and criminal “hacktivist” wolf-packs.

But 18 hours into the heavily-promoted online rebellion funded by the Washington, D.C. corporate lobbyists for Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, Google, AT&T, Twitter, Netflix, Reddit, Mozilla, PornHub, Spotify, and Reddit, have not been able to prod the 100,000 interest groups they supposedly signed up to generate much in the way of rage.

The TechCrunch blog’s landing page featured the Marxist clenched-fists held high to symbolize the workers of the world uniting to storm the ramparts of the FCC and throttling revisionist Republican Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Michael O’Riellyin their efforts to roll-back the 400-page Net Neutrality broadband Internet regulations and taxes approved by a Democrat-majority FCC in February 2016.

Violent street-level protests against Trump administration policies this year have been led by so-called Antifa (antifascist) groups who wear black clothing and face-masks, as well as scarves, sunglasses, ski masks and motorcycle helmets. Antifa forces shut down Berkeley in April and May by using fists, M-80s, pepper spray and heavy bike locks to prevent presentations by conservative speakers. Similar groups engaged in days of riots that included looting shops and fire-bombing cars at the recent G20 meeting in Hamburg.

But such bare-knuckle tactics have failed to materialize on the Day of Action. Instead, some corporate participants were running headline banners and slowing down response times to demonstrate the evils of an unregulated Internet.

Fight for the Future, the organization coordinating the event, claimed, “More than 100,000 websites, Internet users, and organizations are participating in a massive online protest against the FCC’s plan to gut protections that keep the web free from censorship, throttling, and extra fees. Protesters have also gathered outside the Senate in DC.”

Google released a public policy blog post to rally support across the nation in defense of Net Neutrality: “We hope you’ll make your voice heard.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to his personal Facebook page to post a supportive statement: “Right now, the FCC has rules in place to make sure the internet continues to be an open platform for everyone. At Facebook, we strongly support those rules. We’re also open to working with members of Congress and anyone else on laws to protect net neutrality.”

Reddit started the day featuring a pop-up message that slowly loaded: “The internet’s less fun when your favorite sites load slowly, isn’t it?” But by the afternoon, the site’s most popular “all”; “hot”; and “new” pages did not have any posts about Net Neutrality.

Kickstarter’s landing page sometimes displayed: “Defend Net Neutrality: Protect creativity, innovation, and free speech in the digital age. Keep the internet open for everyone.” But most visits feature a banner for Kickstarter Gold” through July 31.